S2. E7: What Next for Virtual Simulation with Pete Morrison

13-12-2023 • 41 mins

Virtual simulation has been around for a while now, and there has been some great leaps and bounds in its fidelity - mainly through the adoption of commercially available technologies that run on standard (albeit high-end) computer hardware.

One person who was there during the early emergence of these technologies was Pete Morrison - previously CEO and now Chief Commercial Officer at Bohemia Interactive Simulations. During his tenure, BISim was one of the few companies to successfully repurpose an off-the-shelf gaming engine for military applications. Today Virtual Battlespace is deployed with most of the NATO and partner nations for training militaries, as well as numerous military and government organisations globally.

Pete provides a short potted history of the development of COTS gaming (making us all feel old) and how the applications have grown up in the defence industry to deliver some critical training applications.

But where from here? Pete goes on to speak about the development of virtual technologies for test & evaluation, as well as the future in a world of AI driven warfare - where AI presents us with dilemmas, how can simulation help us to de-risk this?

Building an experimental future framework using simulation will require the convergence of a number of existing technologies, to support the development of future combat systems.

Hosts:

Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/
Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/

Guests:

Pete Morrison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morpj97/

Episode Sponsor: Babcock International

Babcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.

We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.

Whether it’s applying engineering excellence or the latest technology, we combine our expertise with a practical mindset. Alongside our deep engineering experience, digital and data technologies will allow us to better understand, predict and enhance the performance of the assets we manage, make better...